• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, January 14, 2004

Health, Fitness, Nutrition & Gaming Spike After Christmas

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that more than 11 million home surfers flocked to health, fitness and nutrition sites during the week ending January 4, as Americans turned to the Web to help kick off a healthy new year.

The top sites in the category experienced triple and double-digit growth. Weekly traffic to eDiets.com skyrocketed 119 percent to more than one million unique visitors. More than 35 percent of users accessed a page to receive a free diet profile. Weight Watchers surged 97 percent to 876,000 visitors. WebMD jumped 63 percent. Fifty-seven percent of visitors to www.webmd.com went to the Weight Loss Clinic page within the site.

"With Americans becoming increasingly health conscious, the start of a new year offers new beginnings for many who resolve to lose weight and get in better shape," said Abha Bhagat, senior analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings.

Top Health, Fitness & Nutrition Sites, Week Ending January 4 (U.S., Home)

		1/4/2004 Unique Audience (000)	12/28/2003 Unique Audience (000)	% Growth
1.	eDiets	1,036	472	119%
2.	Weight Watchers	876	445	97%
3.	WebMD	853	524	63%
4.	AOL Health	713	448	59%
5.	Yahoo! Health	590	396	49%

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, January 2004

And another class of sites took a jump as a direct response to the holiday season... the kids looked to enhance their game play. The after-Christmas traffic to the fastest growing online game sites rose 61 percent from the previous week. Unique users to the top five fastest growing sites increased from 1.8 million to 2.9 million from the week ending December 21 to the week ending December 28. Cheat Code Central leaped 123 percent, Cheat Planet also saw a triple digit growth increasing 113 percent, and Gigex jumped 74 percent.

Nielsen//NetRatings Fastest Growing Online Game Sites (U.S., Home)

		12/28/03 Unique Audience (000)	12/21/03 Unique Audience (000)	% Growth
1.	Cheat Code Central	729	327	123%
2.	Cheat Planet	668	313	113%
3.	Gigex	581	333	74%
4.	UGO Games	760	532	43%
5.	EA.com	903	634	42%

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, December 2003

For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.